It's Mike Hammill's job to keep looters and worried property owners out of the Duck Lake Fire zone. And it's harder than you think.

As the Duck Lake Fire enters its second week, law enforcement officers are "at every point of that fire. What people don't understand is a lot of these entry points aren't nice paved roads or even good dirt roads. They're ORV trails and snowmobile trails that lead into the fire zone," said Hammill, a Michigan Department of Natural Resources conservation officer based in Newberry.

No looting of evacuated cabins has been reported, although there have been a few arrests for other minor offenses. "But we've got to keep our heads up. Looters are going to do their thing and they aren't going to come in on a main road. We've got it covered and we're watching for it."

Conservation officers are essentially the police force for Michigan's natural resource areas. It doesn't surprise Hammill that people would want to steal from those down on their luck from the Duck Lake Fire. "Hey - people break into churches and steal out of the community tray, too."

The DNR, Michigan State Police, the Luce County Sheriff's Department and other law enforcement officers are working the Duck Lake Fire as a team to maintain calm during the fire, which has now been estimated at 21,450 acres with 55 percent containment.

When the fire broke May 24, Hammill headed into thick woods where there's no electricity, let alone cellphone coverage. The North Country Hiking Trail and the state's three rustic campgrounds attract campers to the isolated forest in northern Luce County - right where the fire was heading.

Hammill had no idea how many people were out there. So he and other law enforcement officers trekked the area by vehicle and by foot as fast as they could.

He estimates they found up to 35 people, who were startled when officers would approach and tell them in no uncertain terms to "pick up your stuff and get out!"

Since then, barricades have been set up to block roads leading in to the fire zone. On Sunday homeowners were allowed to visit their properties, for just 15 minutes. But before that, they stood by the barricades, waiting anxiously for any tidbit of information. At one point, two residents at a barricade had a disagreement and a fight broke out, resulting in an arrest for assault.

DUCK LAKE FIRE PROFILES

He's had to make a few emergency runs with homeowners who didn't have time to grab crucial prescription medications as they fled their homes. Hammill said the trips were eerie.

"I'm not a firefighter. I'm a law enforcement officer," he said. "I'm not as comfortable around fire and heavy smoke like the firefighters are. There were times when the visibility was zero, and you literally had to look out the driver side window at the edge of the road to make sure you're still on the road."

Anyone entering the fire zone takes safety precautions. Officers are in constant radio communication. And they use AVLs - automatic vehicle locators - so if someone is endangered or needs assistance, emergency crews know exactly where they are.

Early on a recent morning, Hammill noticed that the fire was about a half mile from an expensive mobile processor - he estimates worth about $300,000 - owned by a local timber man. The processor, which trims timber enough so it can be transported out of the logging area, is huge, with tires about six feet high.

He drove the owner into the location, as wind was pushing the fire closer to the machinery. The owner climbed onto the processor and maneuvered it out of the zone, escorted by Hammill in front and another conservation officer in back, their emergency lights piercing the smoke so approaching fire trucks could spot them.

"You see other equipment and homes in there now that are all burned up and you think you could have potentially saved them if you could have made it on time," Hammill said regretfully.

Residences in the fire zone range from modest no-electricity cabins to half-million-dollar homes. It makes no difference.

"There are some waterfront places up here that are gorgeous and some of those are newly built. But I'm sure that the newer homes probably have less meaning to the owners than those who have a cabin that their grandfather built back in the early 1900s. I'm sure of that," Hammill said.

A lot of love has been put into some of those modest cabins that have served as gathering places for two or three generations. They represent not just memories, but family lore. "These places have a lot of meaning to people."

Today, Hammill will be on Bone Lake, using a marine patrol boat to tow two Michigan State Police divers with scuba gear, searching for a bucket that became detached Sunday from a National Guard helicopter. Air tankers and helicopters are scooping water from inland lakes and dumping it on the fire.

The mucky lake - "It's dark as a pot of coffee" - is about 25 feet deep. "Yesterday they couldn't see their hand in front of their face. So I've got to tow them right over the bucket. We didn't find it yesterday, but we're going to find it today," says a determined Hammill.

It's been one week since the Duck Lake Fire broke out. Hammill thinks back to that day when he had to tell campers to leave their sites - fast.

That night, as he saw the flames' intensity grow, he was struck. "I was watching that fire come to the north and the wall of flames that were up in the treetops and how fast it was moving. And I was thinking there was no one who could survive that if they were still in the area. It was a good feeling knowing we'd gotten everyone out of there."